The public is becoming increasingly aware of the health benefits derived from eating a balanced diet, controlling total food intake and limiting the intake of fats, especially limiting the intake of saturated fats. There is also a fundamental dietary need for protein. Peanuts, cashews, almonds, walnuts, pecans and other nuts, and products made from nuts such as nut butters, are known sources of vegetable protein. Peanuts and peanut butter in particular are popular foods and are an economical source of protein. However, consumption of peanuts and peanut butter is sometimes avoided because of the high fat content of peanuts and peanut butter.
Although the fat content of peanuts varies among peanut varieties and also among crops of a single variety of peanut, fat accounts for approximately 35 to 53 percent by weight of a given batch of peanuts. When peanuts are crushed, roasted and processed into peanut butter, the fat content of the resulting product can average above 50 percent by weight. It is this fat which gives peanut butter much of its texture, mouthfeel and spreadability and some of its peanutty and buttery flavor.
When fat is removed from peanut butter to produce peanut butter lower in fat and calories, the resulting product looses much of its familiar texture, mouthfeel and spreadability. Depending on the fat removal process, the resulting peanut butter also loses some of its flavor. For example, reduced fat peanut butter has been made by pressing peanuts to express oil. While this process may remove from 27 to 32 percent of the fat from peanuts, it is typically an expensive process. In addition, when fat is removed from peanut butter by pressure, water is sometimes added to replace the removed fat. The resultant peanut butter is dry and crumbly and subject to molding.
Natural oil separation methods have also been utilized with peanuts. These processes typically involve extracting fats by agitating and heating ground peanuts and applying absorbent materials to the agitated heated peanuts. Generally less than 9 percent of the oil in the peanuts can be removed by natural oil separation and the elevated temperatures can affect the taste and texture of the resultant peanut butter. In addition, because the fat content of peanuts varies significantly by peanut variety, the amount of fat removed by this method depends on the peanut variety or combination of peanuts in the particular batch being processed, such variability making mass production of a consistent quality reduced fat peanut butter difficult.
It is also possible to extract fat from peanuts by solvent extraction using organic solvents such as hexane. However, solvent extraction methods have not been widely used because of governmental restrictions and concerns about possible toxicity.
In addition to the dictates of consumer taste requiring that reduced fat peanut butter have the texture, mouthfeel, spreadability and flavor of regular peanut butter, reduced fat peanut butter must meet federal statutory and regulatory requirements. In particular, regulations promulgated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration define the minimum percentage of peanuts which must be present and the maximum percentage of other ingredients which are allowable in commercially marketed peanut butter.
It is against this background that the significant improvements and advancements of the present invention have taken place.